In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus tells us: “Blessed
are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of
God”. (Matt.5:9)
And he says: You have heard it said, ‘You
shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say
to you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good
to them that hate you, and pray for them who spitefully use you
and persecute you, that you may be the children of your Father
in heaven.
(Matt 5:43-45a)
During the early days of the
cold war, President Dwight Eisenhower said, “I think that
the people want peace so much that one of these days government
had better get out of their way and let them have it.” Disciples’
Peace Fellowship joins with others around the world to say the
time for peace is now. The call for war against Iraq is only the
latest in a long series of steps that lead the human family away
from a world where God’s peace reigns. While the current
administration has accelerated this process by abrogating treaty
after treaty, by ignoring legal processes and civil rights, and
now, by aggressively planning a first-strike war against Iraq,
previous administrations have armed and trained those who now
act against us. We, as a nation, are entitled to pursue lawful
justice for our attackers; however, it is also time to take responsibility
for our own actions which have caused others to do violence against
us. In the aftermath of the September 11th attacks, our grief
and fear have been co-opted and converted into a call for revenge—an
American holy war. This only increases our grief and sense of
alienation. War is the last, worst answer to humanity’s
problems. There is never anything holy about it. Violence only
births more violence, destroying the earth and leaving human misery
in its wake.
We applaud the words of the World
Council of Churches, A Call to Stop the Rush to War, signed by
world religious leaders, including Dick Hamm, the General Minister
and President of our denomination. Certainly, the United Nations
must be respected and action against any nation should only be
undertaken in cooperation with the world community. But beyond
more careful ways to pursue a “just war,” DPF believes
it is time for the human family to abolish war and invest our
resources in creating the conditions of peace and justice among
all people and nations
There are different kinds of
peace. A peace wherein our country has simply bullied the rest
of the world into submission is not a peace that will last; not
the peace we seek. In its quest for this kind of poisonous peace,
the administration has coined the phrase “anticipatory self-defense”
to describe its new and dangerous first strike policy. But “anticipatory
self-defense” is just another name for aggression. For the
first time in our history, we are planning to openly attack another
country before it has attacked us.
As in all war, the most vulnerable,
here and in Iraq, will suffer the most. In Iraq, sanctions have
already cost the lives of a million children and have had virtually
no effect against the elite in that country. The loss of life
in an all-out war there will surely be staggering. But the losses
here will be significant too. In addition to our own military
losses, cuts in funding for health care, public education, programs
for the young and the elderly, and a myriad of other programs
will put many at risk. Are we prepared to pay the cost? According
to an administration source, this war may cost us $15 to $20 billion
dollars a year. What would be the result if we invested as much
in nonviolent solutions as we are currently investing in violent
ones?
God’s peace, God’s
shalom as it is called in the Hebrew scriptures, means the absence
of fear and want for all earth’s people and sustainable
life on the planet. As Christians, we believe Jesus calls us to
live life nonviolently and to be a peaceful presence in the world.
Peace is not an opinion or an option. It is a command. In obedience
to the teaching of Jesus, we say again, the time for peace is
now.
-- Disciples Peace Fellowship,
Executive Committee
